Monday, May 19, 2014

James Block and his legacy

Common Core tracks back to Mastery Learning...

James Block. leading promoter of Skinnerian Outcomes/Performance-based education and Mastery Learning/Direct Instruction, gives parents "ammunition" to use when they go before school boards regarding their concerns about the dumbed down Outcomes Based (OBE) curriculum and Common Core being implemented across the nation. Note what he admits. in an key quote that can be found my book, the deliberate dumbing down of america, page 118:

Professor James Block, a leader in Skinnerian mastery learning circles, discussed this redistribution of brains in an article published in Educational Leadership (November 1979) entitled “Mastery Learning: The Current State of the Craft.” Block explained that:

One of the striking personal features of mastery learning, for example, is the degree to which it encourages cooperative individualism in student learning as opposed to selfish competition. Just how much room is there left in the world for individualists who are more concerned with their own performance than the performance of others? One of the striking societal features of mastery learning is the degree to which it presses for a society based on the excellence of all participants rather than one based on the excellence of a few. Can any society afford universal excellence, or must all societies make most people incompetent so that a few can be competent?